Shreds
by Adipodes Poe
Summary: I am here to pick up what is left and piece it back together. Oneshot


A/N: This is my first Remus/Tonks fic. I've decided that they are very intriguing indeed. I think that I see them much differently than some people do. I see them in a very serious, almost tortured relationship. So, this is my first attempt to show you what I mean. And, maybe if you like it...there could be more.

_Dedicated to everyone who has ever fought for something...even when it cost them dearly._

-Shreds-

He's sleeping. Finally, he is sleeping and I don't know how we got to this place. When did we become...whatever we are? Just now I can feel him. I can feel him all over me. His bare foot is nudged up next to mine, almost tickling, but not. His leg is draped over mine, lying over my knee and snug. I can't help but follow the line of his relaxed body to every place that it touches mine. His arm is around my waist and I can feel his chest slowly expanding against my side. He's breathing. Thank you, Merlin, he is breathing. And his face. His cheek is resting against my chest, just on top of my shoulder and I can look at him. My stomach aches at the thought of the change that his face makes when he is with me, like this.

It's not what you think. We don't...oh, what is the new socially acceptable phrase?

Sleep together.

We don't sleep together...well, not like you may assume. I can't even describe what we do.

No...I can. Remus, he fights. He fights for good, and just, and right. He fights by becoming the thing he hates most about himself. And I...well, I am here, when he can't fight anymore. I am here to pick up what is left and piece it back together. And I'm the one who has to look into his eyes and see the little bits of Remus that get lost on the inside. Those are the bits that are the hardest to restore. The shreds of humanity that he thinks he loses by fighting _with _his beast instead of against it. Sometimes, not much has been lost. Sometimes it's just a few scratches and a bad temper. But sometimes, like tonight, there's blood. Gouges, cuts, slashes, some deep enough to scar. There are no bad tempers on one of these nights. There is just sadness, and shame, and silence, and tears. But tonight...there was something even more than that. Tonight, finally, there was comfort. Finally, a line was crossed.

He came as he always does on the bad nights. I'd been waiting anxiously, changed hastily into shorts and a worn tee shirt, nursing a cup of tea, when he finally came.

I heard the knock at my door and I nearly scalded myself with my tea. I hurried to the door and opened it wide, suppressing a gasp as I took him in.

He was battered, the skin of his neck and chest was bruised and bloodied, visible because his modest button-up was torn to shreds and barely hanging onto his arms. His pants, dirty from his mission, damaged from their use, were also in tatters. The knees of his trousers were gone and one pocket had been completely torn out. His shoes seemed intact, but were dirty and worn without trouser socks, very uncharacteristic for Remus. And, as if nature could sense that he was not even yet at the end of his sanity, it had started to rain, drenching him on top of everything.

And, I had yet to look at his face.

I pulled him swiftly out of the rain and into the sitting room. He shivered as the first rolls of warmth from the fire hit his body and if I leaned close enough in, I could hear his teeth as they knocked together. He practically collapsed in front of the hearth and I immediately rushed into my room to fetch his extra things that he left with me for these times and made sure I had my wand.

I knelt next to him and began peeling the material off his body. Struggling where it had congealed with the blood and stripping it away made him wince in pain. Finally he was left only in his undershorts. This is the worst part for him, I know. For me, though, it's not the worst.

And I cleaned him. Charm after charm I administered, taking the dried blood away and noting the places that wouldn't be completely healed, tried in vain to rid him of all the bruises.

When there was no more I could do I unfolded one of his neat white undershirts and helped him pull it over his head. Then I handed him his sleep pants and turned around, forcing myself to give him this dignity, even as I hear him struggle to get out of the shorts and into the pants. As he grunted and strained I couldn't bear it. I felt the burn in my nose begin and I tried to suppress the liquid salt that pooled in my eyes. He hates my pity. He thinks that's all I ever do is pity him. But I don't. He just makes me so sad. The situation just makes me so sad because I feel for him...so much.

He finally cleared his throat and allowed me to turn back to him. He finally let me look at his face. No...he finally let me see his eyes. Tears. It's the first time, the only time, I've ever seen them from him in all this. Through all of the worst nights and the most brutal injuries, this is the first time.

I hardened my face, but I couldn't stop my own eyes from crying with his. I didn't want to ask him. I didn't want to know what happened. But there is a need for it still. The question is in my eyes all the same. Like it always is. He closed his own eyes and nodded.

"Bad," he whispered, "very, very bad."

My face contorted and I put my hand over my mouth to quiet the single sob that tore from my throat. I couldn't help it. I moved to him then, wrapping my arms around his waist and enveloping myself within him. Because no matter how broken he is, he's still Remus, and still part of me. And he's still where I find a home.

He was so cold. Chilled like it came from the inside. I couldn't stand it. I needed to make him better. I needed to banish the bad that made him so cold.

Before I could will them to stop, my hands found the hem of his shirt and disappeared beneath it. My palms snaked up his stomach and chest, feeling. I tried to feel every scar and sooth every bruise on the way. My fingers found dips and valleys in his skin and when my thumb grazed the sensitive bud on his chest I felt the gooseflesh that sprang to life all over him as he shivered under my hand. My nails found their way down his front and lightly traced his sides before my palms flattened on his back and began the pattern again.

My eyes had closed and his forehead rested on mine. I could hear his breathing, short, quick breaths and barely-there gasps as my hands explored his skin. I wanted him so much in that moment. Because of a million reasons. Because he came to me for help time and time again; because he made that place in my stomach ache and burn; because he needed comfort and I wanted so much to give it to him; because...I felt, for the first time, that he wanted me to want him.

I tilted my head up and crossed the borderline. I slowly met his mouth with mine and with the first tentative touch I felt the light behind my closed eyes explode. His hand came up and slid back to cradle my neck, the callouses on his fingers, grazing my hairline. He opened his mouth and I felt his hesitance, his caution that held him back. I opened my own lips in response and slid my tongue against his bottom lip, caressing the softness right inside his lips and inviting him in.

He needed no more encouragement and pulled me forward only an inch or so, crushing my mouth to his. They were slow, heady, heart aching, open-mouth kisses that stole my breath.

He finally pulled away, just enough for breathing room. I gobbled up the air, my chest heaving, and pressed my cheek against his.

"No more bad, Remus. Think only of this," I whispered.

He blew out a long breath.

"This...being, what?"

I squeezed my eyes shut, "Does it matter?"

He moved his head, softly nuzzling my face.

"No," he whispered, "Not tonight. Tonight, this can be wonderful. Tonight...this can be good."

I pulled him close to me and held on, both of us finally crying for real.

When we were calm enough, I lead him into my room, opening the window to let in the breeze, and asked him to lay with me. We crawled onto my bed and I pulled him close. He wound himself around me, covered me with himself, and, making small circles under the hem of my shirt, he drifted off.

And he's sleeping. Away from his worries, and his mission...and his beast. Right now he's here. Right now, he's with me. When he wakes up he'll say what he always says when I show him what I want. He's too much older and he's too poor, and he's too...everything that doesn't matter. The difference is, now I can feel his youth and his wealth and his...something on my lips...and he can't take that back tomorrow.

_-Fin-_

Reviews are appreciated.


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